Dwayne & Francine Meisner's Family Tree

The Genealogy of Dwayne Meisner and Francine Williams

Some Districts, like cities and towns have more than one Sub-District included in the table. The program automatically loads the images for the first Sub-District in the group. When you get to the end of the images for a particular Sub-District, you can click the "Choose Next Image Set" button and then choose the button in sequence below the image viewer to load the next set of images. If there are no extra Sub-Districts for the area, the "Choose Next Image Set" button will not be shown. Click the "Toggle Sub-District Menu" button to show or hide the Sub-District buttons. You can choose to use either the Ancestry image viewer (if you have a subscription), or the image viewer I created to view Library & Archive Canada's free images.

1861 Census of Nova Scotia - Lunenburg County - Polling Districts 1-11 - Roll: M-886

The 1861 Census of Canada is a collection of five provincial censuses. The first national census wasn't held until 1871, because confederation didn't occur until 1867. In 1861, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island only recorded the names of the heads of households, while New Brunswick, Canada East and Canada West recorded the names of everyone in the household. The census for Lunenburg County is divided up into eleven polling districts. Unfortunately, no place names were listed. I was able to correctly determine the place names for each poll district by reading the book "Report of the Secretary of the Board of Statistics on the Census of Nova Scotia, 1861", that was published in 1862. The table below is from the book as well. You can see the book that has been digitized by Google. I have included the count of males and females in the households. This helps the researcher work backwards from later censuses that list the names of all household members. I have also attempted to transcribe all the names with the common spellings used today.

View Population Data | Close Population Data

Polling Districts	Total Population			Number of Families
Polling Districts	Males	Females	Total	Number of Families
1. Lunenburg	1522	1526	3048	519
2. Ritcey's Cove	712	703	1415	220
3. Mahone Bay	1358	1341	2699	434
4. La Have	481	486	967	148
5. New Germany	1058	1073	2131	328
6. Chester	1352	1287	2639	436
7. Sherbrooke	486	426	912	130
8. Petite Riviere	1500	1403	2903	488
9. Bridgewater	1033	996	2029	330
10. Tancook Island	202	177	379	63
11. Mill Cove, St. Margaret's Bay	255	255	510	81
TOTALS	9959	9673	19632	3177

Lunenburg County

Presumably named in honor of the monarch, who was then also Duke of Brunswick - Lunenburg, Lunenburg County was established in 1759, when peninsular Nova Scotia was divided into five counties. Three years later Lunenburg County was reduced in size when Queens County was established. Following the establishment of Queens County in 1762, Hants County in 1781, and Shelburne and Sydney Counties in 1784, the boundaries of all nine of the counties were defined by the Council of Nova Scotia. Subsequently, surveys of the lines and boundaries of the various counties and districts of the province were made during the years 1820-25 and those of Lunenburg County were among those that were run and marked. After considering the report of the Surveyor General, the Lieutenant Governor and Council, on May 3, 1828 declared the boundaries of Lunenburg County. By Chapter 52 of the Statutes of 1863 the Township of Chester in the County of Lunenburg was made a separate District for certain specified purposes. That Statute provided authority for the appointment of a Custos Rotulorum and for the establishment of a general sessions of the peace for the District of Chester, with the same powers as if it were a separate county.

Click the buttons below to see the complete Lunenburg County census records for 1861.
Click here to return to the Nova Scotia census map.

Dwayne & Francine Meisner's Family Tree

The Genealogy of Dwayne Meisner and Francine Williams

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